"The world... ravaged... the sun beat down on the carbon stricken rock. Civilisation... a distant memory. Human-robot sex... the norm. Each day, every day, survival and ... how? this-thus."

A not too distant, distant too hot near-future.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

It's grime up North

QT tuned the solar radio to the Friday Night Five Minute Play ...

No one's gonna take away ma baby and no one's gonna take away ma dream of becoming a ballerina. It don't matter that ma girlfriend beat me then left me and I was the first in ma family to get an “A” level – even though it was in General Studies – and ma parents hate me cos they think am a class traitor cos no one had a job in our family for four generations after the coal mines shut.

Why thank you Mister Factory Owner, this is ma first step on the ladder to ma dream!

And here's your slop bucket.

Epilogue

Six months later Geordie dies in a meat processing safety assessment excercise and his son, George, is taken away to a care home. Over the next two decades, George wins a place at a prestigious Oxford College where he secures a first-class degree in Modern and Ancient Languages, changes his name to Georgina - following private surgery paid for by a mysterious benefactor - and joins the de rigueur political party of the moment where she soon climbs the greasy Mandelson Pole to become PM and forgets all about her tawdry heritage with the soothing balm of several six-figure sums donated by multinational corporations in exchange for favourable consideration in the divvying-out of the public purse.

Post Epilogue

Hauled up in one of the many bedrooms in one of the many mansions in her substantial property portfolio, Georgina is moments away from succumbing to terminal old age. She eases herself from the black leather sheets and bends to reach for the bottom draw of her dresser where she pulls out a pristine pair of diamond sequinned ballerina shoes, slips them on with objectionable creaks from her ancient joints and performs a single pirouette before dying on the spot like a strangled swan.